District Superintendents of Schools
Superintendents of Public Schools
Administrators of Nonpublic and Charter Schools

From:

James A. Kadamus

Subject:

The Impact of Inclement Weather on State Examinations

As you know, most schools in
Hudson Valley, the metropolitan NYC area, including Long Island, as well as
some other areas across the state, are closed today. There are six State
examinations scheduled for today:

§ Regents Examination in Physical Setting / Chemistry

§ Regents Examination in Physical Setting / Physics

§ Regents Examination in Global History and Geography

§ Regents Examination in U.S. History and Government

§ RCT in Writing

§ RCT in Reading

In anticipation of the storm, I sent a message
to all BOCES District Superintendents (DSs) and representatives of the Big 5
cities yesterday, restating the rules to be followed in the case of inclement
weather, and providing a form on which to submit data on the impact of the storm
on schools and students. You can assist in this process by being prepared to
provide the DS in your region with the following information:

Which school(s) closed, and on what date(s);§

Which examinations were not administered due to weather;

§ How many students were scheduled to take each examination that was not administered due to weather; and

§ In what grade were those students.

We are requesting that the data
be submitted by February 4. This will give us the information we need to
evaluate the situation and make informed decisions as needed. Any decisions
will be shared with all BOCES District Superintendents, school superintendents
and representatives of nonpublic and charter schools. They will also be posted
to the web at http://www.p12.nysed.gov/.

Please note, the specific
Regents examinations given today will not be rescheduled. That means the
examination forms that were distributed for use today cannot be administered at
a later date or time because they have already been made public.

In addition, we have previously sent you information about the effect of weather
on exam administration. On January 22 a notice was posted to the P-12 website
and subsequently sent to all of you via our statewide email broadcast
summarizing the rules to follow in the case of inclement weather during the
January examination period. That notice can be found at
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/deputy/_assessment/inclementweather.htm.

We also created a website on which we have posted all scoring clarifications and
important notices that have arisen during this examination period. News about
this site was shared with administrators and teachers across the state beginning
two weeks ago. The information can be accessed from the P-12 website at http://www.p12.nysed.gov/.